WE N E E D OUR NEEDS

Yesterday - again - talking with a client in a therapy session the topic of 'miflife crisis came up'. I say 'again' because when dealing with needs and needs-oriented relational behaviour it's clear we're landing there often. So let's look at the midlifecrisis : Same as with a lot of other randomly occuring social experiences most people take a miflife crisis as something normal. Well, if you see 'normal' in the sense of 'happening in the norm', they are right. But normal doesn't mean natural! A midlife crisis is a cultural phenomenon! (Read that☝🏻 again!) It's NOT biological! What happens in a midlife crisis is that our nervous system changes a strategy it upheld for quite some time. A midlife crisis occurs when we haven't lived according to our needs too long. Since this usually happens between the midthirtees and -fortees you can make assumptions about the patience (or rigidity) of your nervous system with its adaptive impulses. A midlife crisis literally is your inner safety mechanism taking over and putting you in first place - no matter what others say - so that you can take care of the needs that have been neglected 40 about years. And then we behave like in puberty, because from neurobiological point of view the processes are quite similar - we try to find alignment with our identity (again). Taking in account that in our society we already talk about quarterlife crisis, generation X, Y and Z... this just shows how much our species surrenders it's actual personal and social needs on the altar of some ideas and fictions of how we SHOULD be. Our nervous system tells us though: "I disagree! I tried to fit in, but that's not me! Let's try something radical else!" So it's crucial we learn about and honour our needs in a self-responsible and connected way. That is what Evolutionary Relating is all about. ✊🏻

*********************** Photo: fotografiernede